Guyana is open to sharing its allocation of COVID-19 vaccines with its regional counterparts, says the country’s Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony. His commitment comes days after Guyana sent some 5,000 doses to Barbados. But it was Barbados’ donation of 3000 jabs in February of this year that helped Guyana kickstart its immunization programme this month.
Asked if the government will be willing to aid other countries in the Region with vaccines, the Minister replied: “We are open to helping. It is something that we see across the Region for different things – not just for vaccines…We have this type of collaboration all the time. Sometimes we need something: a particular medicine because we don’t have it here, we’ll ask a sister country if they have, and they send to us. Sometimes they have shortages, and we have supplies, we send to them. So, this is something that we have been doing. We have this kind of technical collaboration that is ongoing, and I think it works for all the countries…We are happy to extend the vaccines to Barbados because they’ve helped us kickstart our vaccination programme and we’re just happy to assist in any way we can.”
Earlier this month, Guyana received 20,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine from China.
